Analysis: Insurance Riders to Cover Abortion Services Not Available to Women in States That Restrict Abortion Coverage

In 10 states, insurance plans are currently banned from including abortion as a covered service in state-regulated private plans — all individually purchased policies and fully-insured group plans. Most of these laws do not include exceptions for rape, incest, or health endangerment. In nine of these states, insurers may sell health insurance riders for abortion coverage, but the availability of such riders has been unknown.

A new Kaiser Family Foundation analysis of the insurance plans offered in the nine states with abortion coverage bans finds that in 2018, no insurers offer abortion riders to women insured through individually-purchased plans and only one insurance company offers an abortion rider in the group market in one state.

As a result, women with these private plans have practically no options to secure coverage for abortion services. A new abortion coverage ban in Texas will take effect In April 2018, further blocking abortion coverage for hundreds of thousands of women living in the state.